From Three Kingdoms to Disunion
(220-581)

The
collapse of the Han Dynasty signaled the beginning of what some historians
refer to as China’s “Dark Ages.” This was a time of almost
constant warfare and intrigue. But it also was a time when one dynasty,
tucked away in the southern corner of China, gave rise to great artistic
achievement.

Initially
the country divided into thirds. The kingdom of Wei occupied the north and
northwest along the Yellow River basin. Wu was in the southeast along the
Yangtze and Shu settled along the Szechwan basin in the southwest.

With
its capital in Loyang, Wei had the benefits of holding the imperial seals,
most of the country’s wealth, and thirty million of its people. Using
these advantages, Wei conquered the kingdom of Shu and Wu.

In
the midst of this conquest Wei itself had been toppled by forces within
its own court and renamed itself Chin. Outwardly it appeared that by 280
Chin had reunited China, but its influence waned beyond its capital.

Chin
suffered terrible raids by an amalgam of Huns, Mongols, Turks, and Tibetans
in northern China. Under such pressure Chin collapsed, and China split
north and south. By 383 the north had fragmented into a collection of
small states called by historians the Sixteen Kingdoms. From these political
shards emerged the Turkish-Mongol state of Toba. By 440 Toba ruled the
whole of northern China. But over the next fifty years the Toba spent
its foreign blood and collective wealth in constant warfare. The Chinese
gentry under its rule, however, had retained its wealth and character
and now gained such influence that by 490 non-Chinese tongues were forbidden
in public, the court adopted Chinese dress to accompany their Chinese
customs, and Confucianism became the court’s official ideology.

Farther south
was the Eastern Chin Dynasty. Founded by a Chinese prince amid the ruin
that became the Three Kingdoms, Eastern Chin was the guardian of Chinese
civilization and attained “…the highest refinement of culture
in the Far East…” according to historian Rayne Kruger. Nestled
in the Yangtze Valley, the kingdom was rich in merchant trade, and it
built magnificent water-cooled state buildings flanked by exquisite landscapes.
Fields were covered with rice and fruit orchards. Culture too was cultivated
as carefully, from calligraphy to landscape portraiture, to salon conversation.

Finally in
581 a native Chinese named Yang Chien assassinated the ruling family of
the northern dynasty. Within eight years he conquered the south. He called
his dynasty the Sui, and by 589 Yang had reunited China.